just turned the intrenchments, which the Dutch infantry had attacked to no purpose; Marshal Boufflers was obliged to order a retreat, which was executed as on parade.  “The allies had lost more than twenty thousand men,” according to their official account.  “It was too much for this victory, which did not entail the advantage of entirely defeating the enemy, and the whole fruits of which were to end with the taking of Mons.”  Always a braggart, in spite of his real courage and indisputable military talent, Villars wrote from his bed to the king, on sending him the flags taken from the enemy, “If God give us grace to lose such another battle, your Majesty may reckon that your enemies are annihilated.”  Boufflers was more proud, and at the same time more modest, when he said, “The series of disasters that have for some years past befallen your Majesty’s arms, had so humiliated the French nation that one scarcer dared avow one’s self a Frenchman.  I dare assure you, sir, that the French name was never in so great esteem, and was never perhaps more feared, than it is at present in the army of the allies.”

[Illustration:  Bivouac of Louis XIV.——­503]

Louis XIV. was no longer in a position to delude himself, and to celebrate a defeat, even a glorious one, as a victory.  Negotiations recommenced.  Heinsius had held to his last proposals.  It was on this sorry basis that Marshal d’Huxelles and Abbe de Polignac began the parleys, at Gertruydenberg, a small fortress of Mardyk.  They lasted from March 9 to July 25, 1710; the king consented to give some fortresses as guarantee, and promised to recommend his grandson to abdicate; in case of refusal, he engaged not only to support him no longer, but to furnish the allies, into the bargain, with a monthly subsidy of a million, whilst granting a passage through French territory; he accepted the cession of Elsass to Lothringen, the return of the three bishoprics to the empire; the, Hollanders, commissioned to negotiate in the name of the coalition, were not yet satisfied.  “The desire of the allies,” they said, “is, that the king should undertake, himself alone and by his own forces, either to persuade or to oblige the King of Spain to give up all his monarchy.  Neither money nor the co-operation of the French troops suit their purpose; if the preliminary articles be not complied with in the space of two months, the truce is broken off, war will recommence, even though on the part of the king the other conditions should have been wholly fulfilled.  The sole means of obtaining peace is to receive from the king’s hands Spain and the Indies.”